Manufacture of chains



(No Model.)

- F. O. ROCKWELL.

Manufactureof Chains. I

N6. 240,612. Patented April, 26,l88l

N.PE1'ER$ PHQTO-LITHOGRAPHER. WASHINGTON, D. C.

"NITED STATES FRED C. ROCKWELL, OF HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT.

MANUFACTURE OF CHAINS.

SPECIFICATION formingpart of Letters Patent No. 240,612, dated April 26, 1881. Application filed September 17, 1880. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, FRED O. ROCKWELL, of Hartford, in the county of Hartford and State of Connecticut, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Chains, .of which the following is a description, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, where- Figure 1 is a side View of a piece of chain made in accordance with my improvement. Fig. 2 is a view of one of the links in crosssection on plane w a:. Fig. 3 is a view of the inner side of one of the halves of a socket-link. Fig. 4 is a view of the outer side of the other of the halves of a socket-link.

The improvement consists in a chain composed of links having ball-and-socket joints; also, in details of the construction thereof.

The alternate links a have balls, globes, or spheres at the ends. I will call them balllinks. The other links have sockets for these balls at the ends. I will call them socketlinks. The jointis the common ball-and-socket joint, permitting no endwise play of the links, one upon another. I design this chain particularly for use in chain-pumps. This lack of endwise play is a very important thing in chain for pumps, as it prevents kinking of the chain, the

presence of which defect in the common chainconstruction. also pump not infrequently necessitates the taking up of the whole chain and the tube, in order to straighten out such a kink. This construction also enables me to use smaller wire or link bodies than is practicable with the common to make the links longer, and I attain greater strength practically because there are no turns or doubles in the links to be straightened out bya strong pull thereon.

My manner of constructing the socket-links is novel, and renders them very cheap in the making. These socket-links are made in longitudinal halves b and c, which may be cast,

struck up, or pressed out, preferably the latter, suitably and strongly united, for which riveting, brazing, or the like will answer; but I have a preferable mode, which is to leave a fin, b, on each side of the half I), a wider fin, c, on each side of the half 0, and then lap the latter over the former, as is well illustrated in Fig. 2. The ball-links could, of course, be made afterthe same method, but there is no special reason for doing so, as there is in the case of the socket-links, the production of the sockets being otherwise a matter of considerable expense. It is quite practicable to have a ball at one end of a link and a socket at the other end of the same link; and in that case my mode of making the link in halves and then uniting the halves comes into useful play.

In the first clause of the following claim I limit myself to acominon ball-and-socket-joint, which permits no endwise play of the links, one upon another. In the other, the second clause of claim, I mean byv socket-link, a link having a socket for a ball at either or both ends.

At intervals in this chain a socket is left open-i. 6., so that it will not hold and retain a ball-and the ball and socket are held together by a transverse pin, this for purposes of assembling the parts in making or repairing chain-pumps.

I claim as my improvement- 1. A chain composed of links having balland-socket joints at the ends of the links, as shown and described.

2. A socket-link for a ball-aud-sooket chain, made in longitudinal halves afterward united, substantially as shown and described.

FRED C. ROCKWELL.

Witnesses:

WM. E. SIMONDs, JAMES J. GREENE. 

